Antelope Canyon, August 2021.
I found myself in a place where I needed to name who I was.
--- Hugo Kamya
2011, I left home in China for college in South Korea. Although terrifying, it was simultaneously exciting. It was going to be an adventurous four years; I would live abroad and speak two new languages. I would expand my horizons, grow into a young professional in Finance and then I would return home.
Studying abroad was amazing, but returning home was the plan. I always wanted to be home. So, despite my parents’ advice for me to gain more working experience in Korea, I insisted on my immediate return upon graduation.
2015, after briefly working in the Banking industry in China following my graduation, I moved to South Korea again to take a job temporarily. Banking was what I had envisioned and prepared for myself in college, only to find out that it wasn’t what I wanted. I was quite lost. The job in Korea was a transitional step - it would allow the time and budget for me to figure out what I want to do and prepare for the next step. It was only going to be two years and then I would return home more ready.
Returning home was the plan, I still wanted to be home. Meanwhile, I had the most transformative 2.5 years in Korea. I worked and lived a life with some most influential people in my life, I was becoming someone different, but someone who is my true self. I still wanted to go home, but I decided that it wasn’t time yet. I must continue this journey of becoming myself and then I will return.
2018, I flew across the globe and arrived in America. China, Korea, and some major parts of Asia had been too familiar to me. I had to go and explore something even more different, then I would be ready to return. Only this time, home was a bit more complicated and where I would return was ambiguous. My parents remained in China, and I had spent my late teens and half of my twenties in Korea. The plan was to reunite with my then boyfriend after one year of study. Whether that might be China or Korea, America was only going to be temporary.
Returning was my plan, even though almost 4 years later today I am still here. Recently, I started discerning if the concepts of returning and home are still fitting. Where is home, and what does return look like? If there is a return, when might that be? Is returning home at all possible? If I learned one lesson from the many plans I had for myself in this journey, it would be this: things don’t always follow my plans, but I will always turn out okay—better, actually, than what I plan for myself.
Over the past ten years living in multi-cultural contexts, I had many occasions where I experienced “the shock of seeing my own thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and sense of self in a radically new context, the result of which is that we are forced to understand ourselves differently.”[1] I was a fish who was very much aware of how I breathe in many ways—I was aware of things, cultures, norms, languages, skills, etc. because it was survival for me. But not once have I acknowledged the costs of this journey or grieved its losses.
Sure, many great friends are lost in physical distance and our own busy new life; the neighborhood in which I grew up looks drastically different every time I visit my family; I start forgetting the names of the many people who have known me as a kid (who remain active in my parents’ life); my little brother who looks up to me grows into a teenager, starts high school, college and eventually became this man whose inner life that I really don’t know much; my parents hairs turn grey and skin wrinkly.
In addition, because of my unique experience in the last decade, a departure between me and a “regular / normal” Chinese person in China has emerged and grows larger every day, including with my friends, families, my parents, and brother. The distance is no longer only physical, but also about worldviews, ways of life, and our value systems. With the new knowledge that I acquire along the way, many things which were completely normal start to seem unhealthy, unreasonable, and even wrong. Take my Chinese family dynamic for example—I could easily use “enmeshment,” “fusion,” “narcissistic” to “diagnose” my (and many other Chinese) family systems and societal expectations. Sure, I have been aware of all these, but I have never considered them as my “relational costs of immigration… and disconnection.”[2]
I have only allowed myself to count my “gains, healing, and strength”[3] because that’s what kept me going. The wisdom and support from my parents who want the best life for me; the determination to achieve on my own; the resilience to rebound despite obstacles; and the faith to know that I’d flourish wherever I go - all of these become my story and are who I am today.
Kamya and Mirkin argue that in psychotherapy, therapists should pay attention to both the “relational costs and gains of immigration and listen for places for disconnection, as well as places of healing and strength.”[4] Because to ignore the strength and resilience is to not see and know an important part of who the clients are and what their stories entails. Meanwhile, I also appreciate the sensitivity to make therapy a safe place for people to recount the costs of their emigration, the loss of friends, culture, way of life, history with the family, class, and race in their pre- and post-migration experiences. Grieving is not always a priority / option for people when navigating the postmigration new life is more at stake, however, I can see how it might bring clarity, integration, and peace to one’s story.
[1] Robert Shelby, “White Privilege, Pathological Shame and Guilt, and the Perversion of Morality” in Re-visioning family therapy: Race, culture, and gender in clinical practice (3rd ed) eds. M. McGoldrick & K.V. Hardy. (New York: Guilford, 2019), 283. [2] H. Kamya & M.P. Mirkin, “Working with Immigrant and Refugee Families” in Re-visioning family therapy: Race, culture, and gender in clinical practice (3rd ed) eds. M. McGoldrick & K.V. Hardy. (New York: Guilford, 2019), 407. [3] Ibid., 407. [4] Ibld, 407.